Black Feminism and LGBTQ community

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Black Feminism and the LGBTQ Community
Over the years, the feminist movements have effected change on so many societal issues, especially in the West. These movements have fought for equality in areas such as voting, education, and employment. While fighting for such rights, women have lost some battles and have won others. However, more than often, the women’s movement has been termed as dead or about to die (Reger, p.3). This is because there has been a decrease in national movements in some instances. This is not to mean that feminists movements have died. In fact, they have only become better because as society progresses, so does the feminist movement. Now, there are digital feminists who engage in activism through the web and different forms of online platforms. In modern times, feminist movements have penetrated almost every sphere of life. Reger indicates that in many communities, activism efforts have been highly influenced and informed by feminism, although these communities mostly focus on issues that affect them on local capacity (p.4). For instance, the immigrants' community’s activism focuses on issues that affect immigrants and the LGBTQ community’s focus is on issues that affect individuals who identify as LGBTQ. However, all these communities have borrowed some key activism aspects from feminist movements. The focus of this paper is on feminism and specifically, black feminism and LGBTQ activism. The role of black feminists in fighting for the rights of the LGBTQ community, with special attention to the trans-community, will be explored. Also, this paper will highlight some of the issues faced by the LGBTQ community to create awareness and maybe promote an understanding of the LGBTQ community.
What is Black Feminism?
Black feminism is an activist approach that seeks to fight racism and sexism while meeting the unique needs of black women. As indicated by Beal, black women deal with a “double jeopardy” of being black and female. On one hand, black women have lacked, and still lack, the luxuries afforded to their counterpart white women of caring for their homes because unlike white women, black women have had to work to cater to their families’ basic needs. On the other hand, black women still face sexism, not only from white males but also from black men. Black feminism is informed by these personal, oppressive experiences of black women and “has evolved most obviously in connection with the second wave of the American women’s movement beginning in the late 1960s (Combahee River Collective, p.211).” The oppression of black women can be traced to more than one source. These sources include race, sexual orientation, class, and gender identity, among others. These sources are interconnected and each is informed by the other, hence the intersectionality. As a result of this intersectionality, black women are often fighting for equality while addressing all these issues at the same time. This poses problems, especially in organizing black feminists, which have somehow weakened black women’s movement when compared to white women’s movement (Combahee River Collective, p.214). However, black feminism has not lost its agenda of promoting equality by challenging the status quo on issues such as gender identity, racism, and sexual orientation.
Contribution of Black Feminism in Fighting for the Rights of the LGBTQ Community
Black feminists and the LGBTQ community face a myriad of issues that have connected them and have allowed them to work together. According to the Combahee River Collective, black feminism is all about fighting for the liberation of all oppressed people through socialism (p.213). Many black feminists are also members of the LGBTQ community in one way or the other. Therefore, exploring their interconnectedness is imperative in understanding black feminism and LGBTQ activism.
Black feminism has played a role in fighting for the rights of the LGBTQ community by the mere fact that most individuals in the LGBTQ community are feminists first. According to Abelson, a majority of trans-masculine individuals identify as feminists (p.52). However, they do not identify as feminist in the traditional way, but by rather portraying what feminism is from a masculine point of view. The trans-masculine individuals are seen as part of the feminist movement because other than living or being raised by ...